Let's take a look at the leader board

It wasnít because I wanted to get closer to God. I wanted to get closer to my wife, who had chosen that spot in order to keep an eye on our son in the choir. Itís not that we believe our son will cause trouble in the choir. We fear that out of sheer boredom he might fall asleep on the kid next to him.

But the lesson I learned in the front row is that I am not a leader. With none of the congregation seated in front of me I had absolutely no idea when it was time to sit, stand, get out my wallet or pick up a hymnal. I constantly had to steal glances over my shoulder to see what the rest of the crowd was doing.

Thatís not leadership. Consequently I will never run for president. Iím not rich either. Thatís strike two. Somewhere along the line being rich became a key ingredient to running for president. Isnít there a brilliant but poor guy out there whose intellect and ability to find bargains would endear him to the general public? Unfortunately many peopleís response to such a candidate would be: ďIf heís so smart why is he poor?Ē Sigh.

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We seem to like the idea of a self-made leader. Herman Cain was such a man. Cain built a multimillion-dollar pizza empire, which means he might someday own the Detroit Tigers. But Cain was also a philanderer and didnít care about other leaders, especially the guy in charge of Ubeki-beki-beki-stan.

Mitt Romney, who was recently runner-up in what is essentially the Mr. America pageant, presented himself as a self-made man. But his life followed the three basic tenets of the successful American: 1. Get born into a rich family; 2. Which allows you to attend a good college; 3. Which allows you work for a good company that exploits cheap labor.

This country was literally built on cheap labor. Cheap labor built our railroads, farmed our plantations and today assembles our iPhones. Rich people know how to get things done. And, by definition, they know how to get rich. The rest of us try to get rich by robbing a bank or going down to the casino and spinning a roulette wheel.

We cannot succeed as a country if our rich people are not large and in charge. We need them using $100 bills to light their cigars. The ashes will trickle down to the rest of us and we can put them in a bag in our car trunk and if we get stuck in the snow while fleeing a bank robbery we can put the ashes under our spinning wheel.

Sometimes our leaders ascend purposefully, sometimes without intent. Look at our county executive Mark Hackel. Talk about the right guy for the job. Hackel is pure Macomb. I refuse to believe that any other county executive has such an intense focus on his homeland. And have you ever seen this guy give a Powerpoint presentation? Non-leaders such as myself believe itís impolite to point even if itís a powerful point.

This newspaper interviewed Hackel way back when he first joined the police force. Hackel said that at one point he wouldíve been happy to simply own a 7-Eleven store. The rest of us are lucky that his scope widened. Iím particularly lucky because I probably wouldíve ended up robbing a 7-Eleven owned by a cop.